Monday 16 January 1659/60

In the morning I went up to Mr. Crew’s, and at his bedside he gave me direction to go to-morrow with Mr. Edward to Twickenham, and likewise did talk to me concerning things of state; and expressed his mind how just it was that the secluded members should come to sit again. I went from thence, and in my way went into an alehouse and drank my morning draft with Matthew Andrews and two or three more of his friends, coachmen. And of one of them I did hire a coach to carry us to-morrow to Twickenham.

From thence to my office, where nothing to do; but Mr. Downing he came and found me all alone; and did mention to me his going back into Holland, and did ask me whether I would go or no, but gave me little encouragement, but bid me consider of it; and asked me whether I did not think that Mr. Hawly could perform the work of my office alone or no. I confess I was at a great loss, all the day after, to bethink myself how to carry this business.

At noon, Harry Ethall came to me and went along with Mr. Maylard by coach as far as Salsbury Court, and there we set him down, and we went to the Clerks, where we came a little too late, but in a closet we had a very good dinner by Mr. Pinkny’s courtesy, and after dinner we had pretty good singing, and one, Hazard, sung alone after the old fashion, which was very much cried up, but I did not like it.

Thence we went to the Green Dragon, on Lambeth Hill, both the Mr.Pinkney’s, Smith, Harrison, Morrice, that sang the bass, Sheply and I, and there we sang of all sorts of things, and I ventured with good success upon things at first sight, and after that I played on my flageolet, and staid there till nine o’clock, very merry and drawn on with one song after another till it came to be so late.

After that Sheply, Harrison and myself, we went towards Westminster on foot, and at the Golden Lion, near Charing Cross, we went in and drank a pint of wine, and so parted, and thence home, where I found my wife and maid a-washing.

I staid up till the bell-man came by with his bell just under my window as I was writing of this very line, and cried, “Past one of the clock, and a cold, frosty, windy morning.” I then went to bed, and left my wife and the maid a-washing still.

A full passage, filled with good material ... but I'll only ask about one small detail. In this age would there be one day of the week designated as wash day? Or would the interval be even greater? It was at least interesting enough for Samuel to note how both women were still hard at work past 1 O'Clock.

Latham-Matthews thoughtfully provides this note: "The household wash at this period was a long and complicated affair. John Houghton, the economist, wrote in 1695: 'I find upon Enquiry that in good Citizens' Houses, they wash once a Month, and they use, if they wash all the Clothes at home, about as many Pounds of _Soap_ as there be Heads in the Family....'"

I admit it: George Downing is my hobbyhorse. Sorry to bore everyone with the office politics/power dynamics, but here's my analysis again (I'll try not to be too repetitive):

Can you tell that Pepys doesn't trust Downing? If he says, "Sure, Hawley could do my job for me -- after all, Boss, there's nothing much for me to do around here," he stands to lose his 50-pounds-per-year job. Have fun making the rent payments, Sam!

Isn't one of the major sources of job stress supposed to come from being under pressure that you yourself have no control over? Sounds like Sam has a textbook definition of it today.

It's hard to believe that the penny-pinching, ruthless George Downing would keep Sam at the job for a second longer than he had to -- if he were only thinking about Sam's usefulness at the Exchequer. It's easy to believe Downing, that "servile" man who always "had an eye out for the main chance" (as Stephen Coote, one of Pepy's biographers, says), would keep Sam as an ongoing favor to Sam's patron, Montagu.

Whether or not Downing calculated this before his conversation with Pepys, it might be a good idea for Downing to have said what he said. It reminds Montagu, through Pepys, that Downing is doing a favor for Montagu by keeping Sam on the payroll when there really isn't any reason for it. Some historians speculate that Downing may have been laying the groundwork for dismissing Pepys -- if so, it's groundwork that only needs to be laid in order to answer to someone important like Montagu. There's no other reason for Downing to care whether or not such an unimportant person as Pepys is aggrieved.

When Pepys was hired, Montagu was especially important for Downing to cultivate because Montagu was a favorite of Cromwell. Montagu's power is now far declined, but this military man may be useful when armies are on the march, and if the accusations against Montagu of conspiring with Charles II are true, Montagu may just be very valuable in the future -- not a man to make mad, but certainly someone who might be reminded that a favor is being done for him.

Interestingly, Pepys doesn't seem to realize any of this (JUST POSSIBLY, Sam knows more about the situation than I do.)

"once a Month"Lest anyone be too taken aback, I would like to bring to everyone's attention the marvelous opening of Penelope Fitzgerald's The Blue Flower (set in the late 18th century), in which the young protagonist arrives at a house in time to see the laundry being tossed out of the windows in preparation for the *annual* washing.

Forgive me, but doesn't our Sam sound like he had a hard day at the office, didn't know what as going on, went out, got drunk, blew his own horn and went home on a high (my maid and wife washing still). The old lush!

It looks like we have a answer to the earlier question from Scott Rosser on http://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/1660/01/15/ yesterday. It would seem that Pepys is like any other reasonably diligent diarist. He attempts to write his diary every day ("as I was writing of this very line") but would sometimes miss a few days and have to spend some time catching up, as he did yesterday. I wonder whether this might explain why some of the entries are shorter than others...

David: I don't think that there's any indication that Downing considered Montagu to be a political liability at this point. Montagu still held the post of General-at-Sea (correct me if I'm wrong, but Richard Ollard's biography of Pepys seems to indicate that he still held this post). I think it's pretty clear that Downing and Monk would require a partner who had access to ships. It later becomes clear in the diary that Montagu was in contact with Charles. On this upcoming trip to Holland, I suspect that Downing could very well have been carrying letters to Charles from Montagu (and possibly from Monk as well?).

Sure, Downing wants to save 50 pounds by easing Pepys out, letting his man Hawly take up the slack. But if Pepys were not connected to Montagu, Downing would have just sacked him. I think he's trying to find a way to ease Pepys into something else, Montagu being much too important to him to insult (certainly on the 19th we see Downing trying to put a good spin on Pepys upcoming job change).

So, yes, Pepys is disconcerted by Downing's suggestion, but he's not mortified -- he was in a good enough mood to toot on his flageolet most of the evening. Not the behavior of a man whose future is really in question.

I have to say that if my boss asked me to relocate to a foreign country, and if my job could be done by someone else, then I would be pretty thoughtful too! Especially as going to Holland might mean getting involved in pretty heavy politics regarding the king's people in exile there.

I think that the diary entries are a little misleading. For one thing, Samuel was also a Personal Assistant to his boss so was constantly being sent around the city to meet people and pass on and receive messages, run errands etc. He's not just visiting coffee houses and taverns for his own enjoyment.

But it is probably true that there was little office work at the moment. Everyone knew that the Government was a dead man walking - the only question was whether a strengthened republic or a monarchy would replace it so big projects were being delayed until the situation was clearer. Hence all the political arguments that Pepys writes about in his diary. I think it's correct that already at this time General Monk was moving his army south to London (In modern terms, think Banana Republic - Oliver Cromwell is dead and there is no strong man to replace him).

But ED and Others Should Fear Not! Later in the year Samuel will be starting work at 4 a.m. just to get through his workload!

Is Pepys in his late 20s? I find it interesting that the diary entry says he has a regular drink with Matthew Andrews and other coachmen. So he's friends with the equivalent of cab-drivers as well as with the aristocracy which is pretty wide-ranging.

As others have mentioned, everyone including women and children would have regularly drunk beer because it was safer than water - but the daytime stuff was extremely weak (perhaps 2% alcohol or less).

Beer safer than waterTo continue an earlier subject of discussion: Last night the BBC showed "What the Victorians did for us". This included the discovery that cholera epidemics were spread through drinking water. After one large outbreak killing over 100 people, they found most people had drunk from the same water supply. At a local brewery, where all workers drank only beer, not one of them caught cholera.

as a child growing up in the north of england in the 40's & 50's, mondays were always designated washing days in the community in which i lived.Virtually the whole day was dedicated to it.Washing machines were rare, and dryers non-existent, so family laundry was a major task.

I don't know whether this practice dated back in history, but it now sounds like it.

Can anyone up on the intrigues of the period tell us how open the dealings with Charles Stuart were at this point? How dangerous would it have been (with the Rump Parlaiment so weak) for word of them to get out? When Mr Downing says that he is "going back to Holland," is he openly saying to Pepys "I'm going to deal with the putative and future King, are you in?" or is it only tacitly understood between them that visiting Holland would give access to the court-in-exile? The annotation on Downing says that he had been Cromwell's agent in Holland, so presumably his previous connections could give him non-political cover for visiting there. Or could people in England openly visit Charles at this point?

An experienced diarist like Pepys probably had a good regimine of daily writing established. I have been keeping a journal since the Autumn of 1999 and can attest to the difficulty of maintaining a strict practice of daily recording. Two things I have noticed in my own practices are:

The busier I am, the less likely I am to record. This Christmas resulted in roughly ten blank days in my journal.

Those days which are missed and then backfilled tend toward a declining degree of detail. If I should miss two days, not only are the memories hazy but events seem...less important.

The more stress I am under the longer my entries tend to be. I do imagine that the journal helps me to analyze the event while dissapating the strong feelings. The volume of material today strongly implies, to me anyhow, Pepys may have reacted similarly.

"Downing left [for Holland] without giving a sign [at least to Pepys] that he had anything in mind but the continuation of his diplomatic service to the existing government in England." -- Claire Tomalin's "Samuel Pepys: The Unequalled Self," p. 93. She comes close to saying that Downing wasn't yet negotiating with the royalists in January, but perhaps no one knows what Downing's dealings were as of this point.

Montagu was "lying low" at Hinchingbrooke since the summer of 1659, but he had been "negotiating with the royalists" all the while. "Pepys was equally in the dark about his intentions." (p. 94) Montagu is no longer in control of the navy -- command was passed on to John Lawson in 1659.

"Pepys had reason to be worried by Downing's offer. Was he sincere in asking if he would like to go to Holland, or was it a trap to dscover whether he justified his position in the Exchequer Office? If he agreed that his colleague could do all his work as well as his own, it was an admission he was not essential. He must tread carefully." (p. 25)

This whole period and specifically the politics of 1659 and 1660 is still new to me, and I welcome anyone's comments, especially skeptical comments. I'm going to do more reading to try to flesh out the following hypothesis:

Montagu is now at a low point in his career, and it seems to me that's why Downing would hold this ominous-sounding conversation with Pepys. But Montagu clearly had some political strengths left (future events show others respecting his power), and I think that's why Downing hasn't fired Pepys.

Unless I'm reading this wrongly, it sounds like Pepys was being asked if he was willing to accompany Downing to Holland. It seems reasonable that Downing would have a legitimate interest, in that case, to knowing if the duties of Teller of the Receipts of the Exchequer (Downing's job, for which Pepys was his employee) could be completed in Pepys absence from London.

I can see the stress involved in deciding whether or not to go to Holland with Downing, seeing that he does have a life here, and is supposed to be keeping Montagu up to date about the political situation in London.

My Grandmother always did the laundry on Monday her entire married life, right up until she passed away last year. Before the advent of washing machines it used to take her all day after getting up at the crack of dawn (there where nine people living in her household at the time). Ask anyone in England from her generation and they will tell you Monday is wash day.

I think Monday is a common washing day, at least before the invention of washing machines.

A few nursery rhymes talk about washing days:

They that wash on Monday, have all the week to dry;They that wash on Tuesday, are not so much awry;They that wash on Wednesday, are not so much to blameThey that wash on Thursday, wash for very shame;They that wash on Friday, wash in sorry needThey that wash on Saturday, are lazy folk indeed.

and

'Here we go round the mulberry-bush,the mulberry-bush, the mulberry-bush.Here we go round the mulberry-bushso early in the morning.

This is the way we wash our clothes,we wash our clothes, we wash our clothes.This is the way we wash our clothesso early Monday morning.

The profound loss of conviviality we have undergone since then is emphasised by this wonderful night of singing and self-flageoletion. How ironic that what is left of this tradition is under severe threat by the UK government's current plans to license it out of existence. For an article on these plans, see: www.guardian.co.uk/arts/features/story/0.11710,... and for an on-line petition to save pub music: www.musiclovers.ukart.com/